Misfortune
by Satiah
Summary: Trapped upon a hospital bed with an inept nurse caring for him, Deidara has to wonder why the universe hates him so much as to decide to send him a visitor. But, that's just the nature of Tobi and Friday the Thirteenth.


Naruto © Masashi Kishimoto

... ... ...

Deidara smiled softly as he let the breeze blow through his hair, occasionally obscuring his view as blond streaks passed in front of his remaining eye. He inhaled deeply, letting the fresh air from the open window cleanse his lungs of the stuffiness of the room around him. Oh, how he longed to be outside, flying through the clouds without a care in the world, watching the ground pass underneath him in a blur of grays and greens and browns. Looking up, he would see the whites of the clouds streaking through the sky, backlit by the most intense blue he had ever had the opportunity to see. The sky always intrigued him; there were so many different colors, from dawn to dusk, and no matter how fast, far, or high you flew, you could never feel surrounded by them. They were always out of reach, and you were weightless as you chased after what was not really there. A one-sided game of tag, he supposed. Except that, no matter how hard he tried, he could never catch the sky.

Deidara closed his eye and sighed softly to himself. Ever since he was little, he had tried to reach the sky. Tried to catch the stars. Of course, when you were little, all things were possible. He was just a few inches too short at the time. Unfortunately, as you grew older, you realized there were other inhibitions, such as gravity, thinning atmosphere, and those wonderful laws of physics that told you there was no way a body and a flying chunk of clay were going to make it out of the atmosphere. And as for catching the stars? Well, he learned how well that would work, too.

But, that didn't make the sky any less beautiful. It was always there, always blue, and always out of reach. But it was still there to try to catch. After all, it was just one more barrier. And humans had the tendency to set their goals and dreams outside of barriers, no matter how improbable or crazy their methods seemed.

Not that Deidara seriously wanted to touch the sky. He just liked the feeling of absolute freedom, and 'catching the sky' sounded poetic enough. (It lasted three paragraphs of this story, anyway.) It was a pity that freedom was just a tad out of his reach right now.

Deidara groaned as he heard footsteps stop right outside his door. He knew who it was, _ooooh yes_, he knew who was there. And he didn't like it. He fixed his gaze on the window and tried to the best of his ability to ignore what was coming.

"**DEIDARA-SENNNNNPAIIIIIIIII!**" Tobi hollered cheerfully. A few hundred decibels too loud for Deidara's liking, but that was Tobi.

Deidara squeezed his eye shut and tried to block out that annoying voice. Unfortunately, it was nearly impossible to ignore Tobi. Especially when he was proud of himself. As it seemed like he was today.

"Deidara-senpai! Look at what Tobi brought you! Flowers! Isn't Tobi a good boy?"

Deidara inched under the covers until his mass of blond hair was completely hidden from the one-eyed view of that orange terror. There was no way he was getting Tobi to leave early when he was proud of himself. Well, this sucked already. He had only been awake for about fifteen minutes.

"Flowers, senpai! Flowers! Look at them, senpai!"

Deidara tried his best to pin down the blanket protecting himself from Tobi. A feeble barrier, yes, but at least he didn't have to look at him. At least not until the blanket was ripped from his grasp and Deidara found himself mere centimeters from that awful orange mask.

"Helllooooo, senpai!" The mask greeted cheerfully.

Tobi received no reply, but that certainly didn't discourage him. It was a happy day, no matter what his grumpy senpai thought. It really wasn't too different from usual, as Deidara-senpai was a grumpy person whenever Tobi was involved, but flowers weren't Tobi, so he shouldn't glare at _those_.

A split-second later, Deidara found a mass of brightly colored petals stuffed in his face, much too close for his eye to focus on. It was starting to give him a headache. Or maybe it was just that reoccurring migraine that resulted in being within close proximity to Tobi. Unfortunately, Tobi was sitting cross-legged on top of Deidara's knees so he could shove the flowers in his face, or perhaps up his nose (Deidara wasn't quite sure), but that just meant he was helplessly pinned, held securely in place, and unable to escape, thanks to the appearance of Sasori-danna's irritating replacement.

"Tobi…get….off, un," Deidara managed to mumble without losing his cool. It was too soon to listen to his partner's obnoxious laughter. In response, Tobi scooted forward so he was sitting comfortably (for him) on Deidara's stomach, and kept the flowers outstretched.

"What was that, senpai? I didn't hear you!"

Between the bandages on his face and the air being crushed out of his body thanks to Tobi's fat butt, responding was a rather difficult chore.

Not that Tobi was paying much mind. He was too busy rambling about how he had picked the flowers all by himself, without help from Zetsu-san this time. Wasn't he such a good boy? He found them all by himself, and he picked them all by himself! And they were pretty, and didn't they smell nice, senpai?

Deidara was seriously starting to run out of air, and Tobi had no intention of moving. His voice kept chirping on and on, much like an annoying baby bird. Birds always had something to sing about, but nobody really cared. Not to mention nobody understood the stupid creatures. Birds were just the providers of obnoxious noise in the background of a perfectly beautiful day.

Okay. _Now_ Deidara had no air.

And Tobi was still chatting happily to himself.

Thank goodness the nurse walked in! Her eyes widened as she surveyed the scene in front of her. Time almost seemed to stop as she took in the situation like a sponge. First, she saw a man with a bright orange mask bouncing like a child on the abdomen of one of her patients. He had a bundle of flowers in his right hand, and these flowers were shoved into the face of her patient, who was turning an interesting shade of blue. Wait a minute…her patient was turning blue! That meant he couldn't breathe. But why? He was hooked up to an oxygen machine….which was unplugged, and the chord was still wrapped around the foot of the bouncing child-man. Wait a minute…that meant that the patient couldn't breathe! That's why he was blue!

Never mind the bouncing part, which was totally squashing Deidara.

Deidara could just see the gears starting to grind together in the nurses' tiny mind as she slowly became aware of the situation in front of her. Not one for quick action, he observed. She must be the newbie. Either that, or she wasn't a ninja, and civilians just weren't built for taking instantaneous action. Lucky Deidara. However, the nurse did manage to do her job as she pushed Tobi clear off the bed, but not before his foot had a chance to connect with Deidara's twice-abused ribcage. This produced a rather painful gasping reflex as Deidara fought both for oxygen and against the pain. The nurse, having too much momentum herself, toppled on top of Deidara, once again removing the air from his lungs and causing a white light to explode behind his eye.

It must be Friday the Thirteenth.

It took another visit to the ER to get Deidara back in somewhat working condition. (Something about ribs that needed to sturdily form a cage, protecting the lungs, instead of being implanted _within_ them.)

Deidara looked like a royal mess, and felt even worse. The left side of his face was covered in burns, as were his chest, arms, and legs. Three ribs had been broken before Tobi, and four after Tobi. Not to mention the cracked wrist and shrapnel wounds all over his body. The only thing that had saved the other half of his face was his right arm, which was so covered in gauze it looked three times its original size. He couldn't feel any of his fingers, much less move them, which wasn't a comforting realization. He didn't even know if he still had them all.

And now he had to deal with Tobi and an incompetent nurse. Wonderful.

Once the nurse left (which panicked Deidara), Tobi could resume his meaningless chirps of joy and happiness. He sat on the visitor's seat by the bed and swung his legs. The more excited he got, the more his legs would swing, causing him to kick the underside of the bed. This jolted Deidara, and caused his whole body to acknowledge the fact that it was, indeed, still broken. Deidara had been trying to trick himself into thinking he was okay so he could at least sleep some of the pain away. Tobi wasn't going to let him, obviously.

Finally, it seemed that the rules of Friday the Thirteenth worked both ways, as Tobi's fold-up chair unexpectedly collapsed from underneath him, spilling the orange chatterbox onto the floor. His head bonked the bed (once again jarring Deidara) when he tried to get up. Finally standing, he attempted to pick up the collapsed chair, but pinched his finger in the joint. Whining about the pain to senpai took Tobi six and a half minutes before he felt better, after which he proceeded to slip on the laminate tile floor and hit his head hard enough to knock himself unconscious.

It was quiet again, so Deidara really didn't care. His vision was still starry after Tobi had hit the bed one last time, so he didn't notice when the light fixture fell from the ceiling and crash-landed on Tobi.

Nor did he notice the doctor rushing in and removing Tobi to fix him up.

After the pain subsided, Deidara closed his eye and welcomed the blissful darkness of sleep. It was quiet within his own head, where the only color was black. He sure was sick of orange. But it didn't matter as he dreamed of flying through the clouds, chasing the ever elusive blue sky.

When Deidara awoke, he noticed that his window had been shut. Sighing in remorse, as he was in no condition to get up and open it himself, he turned his head to see if the nurse was still there. Perhaps he could somehow communicate to her that he liked to leave it open, no matter what the weather.

No. No nurse. What a shame.

He turned to look back at the window and gaze at the clouds, but a noise directed his attention to what lay _beneath_ the window. On the formerly empty hospital bed to Deidara's right, to be exact. Except that it was no longer empty, as on it now lay…

"Hi, Deidara-senpai! A light broke my head, so now I get to stay in here with you!"

Welcome to Friday the Thirteenth.


End file.
